Over Dependency On Mining Has Adversely Affected Zambia’s Economy

The Zambia Union of Financial Institutions and Allied Workers (ZUFIAW) has observed that over dependence on mining as a mainstay of the economy has impacted adversely on other sectors.
Union president Cephus Mukuka has told Qfm news that government needs to apply a policy framework that will revamp other economic sectors.Mr. Mukuka says the country has little benefits from the mining industry as the sector makes minimal contribution to the national budget despite making huge profits.He has therefore implored government to explore and concentrate on other sectors that will be of economic potential to the country.
Mr. Mukuka has also urged government to take calls for more job opportunities seriously saying that the more jobs created the lower the poverty levels will be.

Posted by Editor on March 5, 2012. Filed under BUSINESS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

26 Responses to Over Dependency On Mining Has Adversely Affected Zambia’s Economy

muzukulu

March 5, 2012 at 9:58 am

Its a wake up call for Sata and his ministers. Diversify into other secters and make people have more money in there pockets as per promise.
Exhaust Blown Diffuser

March 5, 2012 at 10:09 am

@ZUFIAW what are you suggesting we inject massive cash in agriculture ?? Personally i think we need to revamp the manufacturing industry..Its been a while since i used a razor blade, are we still importing those??
mwana kopala

March 5, 2012 at 10:44 am

I agree with u exhaust,yet again its not only manufacturing industry that needs revamping most of these sectors are cardinal to any zambian and problem with all these governments is that they have failed to sort out mining investors to our benefits.!very sad.
ucar

March 5, 2012 at 10:47 am

It would b hard to revamp the manufacturing industry mainly coz of labour costs, asians are workin under in-humane conditions,we can’t match this. We should focus on developing agric,tourism,education,health,service industry and I swear we will b fine
Tonga Bull

March 5, 2012 at 11:13 am

the PF are so dull that they think that money is only in mining.
Castle Lite

March 5, 2012 at 11:38 am

We had a battery plant in mansa, bicycle assembly plant in chipata, Fiat assembly plant in livingstone, most of the towns had a plant owned by Zambia breweries making chibuku.What happened to all these companies??
CBU BUNGWE

March 5, 2012 at 11:48 am

As an engineer i can tell u my fellow blogers, the manufacturing industry we do for zambia, am only sadened that these good ideas we are up here can not be appreciated by those people in authority. can someone pliz revive these industries, we reduce on imports…
janet c

March 5, 2012 at 1:04 pm

So what’s new then – this has been repeated since UNIP days – remember fifth national development plan anyone?????

To suggest manufacturing is indeed a fallacy – you just cant compete with china and other asian countries on that front. What i would suggest is starting to develop our service industry. With India booming, they will slowly do away with things like call centres for global companies. Zambians can speak good english – why cant these call centres be based in Zambia? kenya is already moving ahead on the call centre business
Castle Lite

March 5, 2012 at 1:25 pm

@Janet C Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Do we have such companies here or abroad i think your call business suggestion is more than a fallacy to me.
Exhaust Blown Diffuser

March 5, 2012 at 1:31 pm

Janet C failure starts in the mind, why call manufacturing a fallacy all because of china?? You are the same people who forget Zambia produces copper so does chile but we are not shaken..If you have competition work on quality and timely delivery not always that hope is lost. think freely please
Munalian

March 5, 2012 at 1:44 pm

@castle lite,
Janet C’s suggestion makes sense coz over 90% of calls handled in India are from European & North American companies…
BUT…
Some of these call centre jobs are returning to West coz talking to someone across the world, in an incomprehensible accent and not familiar with customs of the caller has become a source of more customer complaint!! In other words,Indian call centres are cheaper to run but not best for customer service!

From a Zambian point or view,attracting some call centre jobs would be great coz they provide jobs in volume…but…major investments in IT (broadband,computer mainframes and servers…) never mind end of power cuts are a must before you dream of a call centre in zed!!

Without this substantial investment,you can forget about call centres mushrooming in zed!!
Exhaust Blown Diffuser

March 5, 2012 at 1:59 pm

@Munalian how much can we be making by running call centers??
Munalian

March 5, 2012 at 2:33 pm

@exhaust…
Trying to reply you about why zed can’t compete with far east for manufacturing and also about call centre but am being censored!!! Pretty annoying!!!
Munalian

March 5, 2012 at 2:40 pm

@exhaust…spelling your name is exhausting!!!!
I am not an expert in the call centre industry but here is my (educated) guess…

A typical UK call centre employee takes home about £1000/month,it would therefore be reasonable to expect a Zambian to fetch£300*8000=K2.4m. Also observe 1 UK employee = 2 Zedians,with the remaining £400 going on all sorts of regular training:customer service,computer system,industry knowledge,region familiarisation etc…
GUN

March 5, 2012 at 2:55 pm

Farming is the best for us,because our land is flat and we may not entirely depend on rain when we have plenty waterbodies we can use for irrigation, Rwanda has litle to no minerals they depend on farming but their economy is beter than ours.
Munalian

March 5, 2012 at 3:07 pm

@exhaust,
Manufacturing goes to the east because:
1) large workforce:some Chinese cities have 100m inhabitants,compare that to zed with 13!!
2)infrastructure is already there,you would have to build factories from scratch in zed!!
3)transport:Zambia is not only landlocked but its national roads and access to the Indian and Atlantic oceans leave a lot to be desired
4) miscellaneous:AIDS,low & sparsely populated country…etc
janet c

March 5, 2012 at 4:35 pm

Wow, I didn’t expect my suggestion to attract so many analyses – at least we are debating sensibly and not insulting

I think Munalian has already given an excellent analysis of why manufacturing is not feasible for Zambia. No country can afford to compete with China and east Asia on manufacturing for at least the next 20 years.

Another suggestion is commercial farming – meat production, veg oil production, grains like rice. India and China’s populations are getting richer – which means their eating habits are changing fast. Millions more are now able to afford to eat meat, chicken, etc. So why can’t zambia feed these mass populations. The farms have to well managed though – one can not just wake up, quit his job at the bank and start farming!!!! We could take advantage of the white zimbabwean farmers who are running to zambia. For all their faults, they are damn good at what they do – i.e. farming
jeff

March 5, 2012 at 7:37 pm

All u people who talk about manufacturing what are sugesting to manufacure nothing . Look at the middle east dubai in particular what heavy industries do they have apart from oil. Money is there here in zambia but the problem is mismanagement
Take a look at the mines we talk about every one tells u we produce copper are u telling it only copper and cobalt that comes from our mines no. Look at the e c s ( reactivity series) copper does not exist alone as a stone it always in oer for what about other minerals are they taxed. Even the minister of finance has never talk about gold produced along side copper but we do produce that
Copper Belt

March 6, 2012 at 7:47 am

all the suggestions you are making will go nowhere because the PF will finish all the money of rubbish projects like reprinting currency.
Exhaust Blown diffuser

March 6, 2012 at 8:15 am

@munalian i like your analysis but remember technology is moving and all those call centers will be automated hence cutting down on the number of call center operators.

@jeff we are trying to move away from entirely depending on mining hence the suggestions of other income alternatives..

@janet C what can be the best to improve on meat production(eg ZAMBEEF)The only feasible way i can think of is government issuing loans so that people set up massive farms to meet those demands in china and india.. Capital is the Achilles hill here
Munalian

March 6, 2012 at 12:02 pm

@exhaust,
Automation can’t solve customer service or tech enquiries,you need humans to do that!!the issue is some call centre jobs are returning to the west due to the recession and envy of rising India!!companies now advertise:”our call centres are in UK/US”
As Janet C says,we need 10 Zambeef 1st to feed ourselves and export the surplus!the start up cost per farm is $10m,which change even for poor Zed…the real Achilles heels is transport within &outside the country!also remember that mechanized farming employs very few people coz the equipment does the job!!rich countries need 5-10 farms to feed 1m people!
Munalian

March 6, 2012 at 12:13 pm

Exhaust,
We need a multifaceted approach;ie consider all sectors:agribusiness,tourism,call centre,manufacturing etc…if I were advising Sata,I would tell him to focus on education & “knowledge economy”,that is training youngsters to do android & apple apps,computer games,tablets,smartphones etc…this is how south Korea,Singapore lead the world with HTC,LG,Samsung etc…S.Korea has the fastest broadband on earth!!these are the types of industries that have (1)high revenues,(2)employ millions,(3)do need physical infrastructure,just light IT and (4) Chinese can’t compete in this field!!

We unfortunately waste our time debating homos,district boundaries,RB money,miniseries’ names…activities that produce 0% GDP increase
Johnny C

March 8, 2012 at 8:27 am

I’ve enjoyed the comments. Very constructive.
ceekaybee

March 8, 2012 at 8:30 am

i would like 2 sugest that the govrnment should try 2 improve the already existin infrastructr,this wil attract mre investments which wil inturn help develop othr sectors hence reducin high dependancy on minin
Uko

March 8, 2012 at 2:51 pm

Like already mentioned above, we definitely need to improve our infrastructure like road networks. I feel that would be our main backbone.
sosa

April 7, 2012 at 9:10 am

it is really important for the government to concentrate on other sectors, especially in argriculture. reason being, a majority of our population depends on farming. let the government provide adquate farming inputs to nibble poverty levels in country.